According to "La
Hora", 3 October 2007, the National Congress has
approved the creation of the new Province of Santo Domingo de los
Tsáchilas (68 "yes" out of 71 voters), by secession
from the Province of Pichinca. The capital of the new province
shall be Santo Domingo de los Colorados.
According to "La
Hora", 16 October 2007, the President of the Republic
may table a partial veto to the Law because of the unresolved
status of La Concordia, a mining districtn which might also be
allocated to the neighbouring Province of Esmeraldas.
According to "El
Universo", 3 October 2007, the President of the Republic
said that the creation of the new provinces of Santa Elena and
Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas will complete the
"provincialization" process in Ecuador, which shall
have therefore 24 provinces.
Ivan Sache, 28 October 2007

Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas province was created
02.October 2007 by spliting from Pichincha province. It has just
one canton - same named Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, formerly
Santo Domingo de los Colorados.
Spanish Wikipedia give basic information as area of 3,857 km2 and
268,075 inhabitants. Capital is the city Santo Domingo de los
Colorados, which didn't change the name.
Searching through Internet didn't give me any results about the
symbols of the province.Source: <www.statoids.com>.Valentin Poposki, 24 April 2008

The provincial symbols have indeed not been adopte yet. "La
Hora", 20 August 2008, reports that the Provincial
Council has appointed a Special Commission that has launched a
public contest and commissioned a jury. The jury has received 34
proposals of provincial flag and arms. Ivan Sache, 24 August 2008

The flag and arms of the Province of Santo Domingo de los
Tsáchilas are shown in "La
Hora", 21 October 2008. The flag is quartered green-red
by a white saltire including two thin black lines near its edges.
A yellow sun with 16 rays, alternate straight and wavy, and
charged with a colibri, is placed in the middle of the flag.
The coat of arms is divided per wavy fess 1a. Gules a sun or with
16 rays, alternate straight and wavy, 1b. vert a colibri proper,
2. azure a fess argent "fimbriated" sable. The shield
is surmonted by a palm tree vert.
According to "La Hora", the new symbols are already a
matter of controversy. The graphic designer Lauro Geovanny
Tenemaza Samaniego, who was among the turned-down competitors,
filed a complain with the Fiscália, claiming that the colibri is
a copy of the famous lines of Nazca, and therefore part of the
registered Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Peru. such an use
is punished by Articles 324, 328 et passim of the Law on
Intellectual Property.
The adoption of the symbols of the Province of Santo Domingo de
los Tsáchilas was also reported in "El
Comercio", undated, including a colour photograph of the
coat of arms:
The winners of the competition are the brothers Andrea Pía and
Juan Cristóbal Amores Argandoña, designers of the flag and of
the coat of arms, respectively.
The provincial flag retains the colours of the flag of the canton
of Santo. Domingo de los Tsáchilas,
red and green. The white and black cross recalls the colours of
the "manpe tsanpá", a dress with horizontal black and
white stripes. (See the photograph published in "El
Mercurio", October 2005), the traditional dress of the
Tsáchilas men. The colours are arranged in aestethic and
proportional colours which sums to 14 [?], matching the number of
parishes in the canton and therefore in the province.
The author further explained that the black and white stripe
represent the four roads crossing Santo Domingo and going to the
Provinces of Pichincha, Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas.
The central emblem of the flag is the sun. Its four main rays
represent the main compass directions and also the four decades
during which the difficult struggle for provincialization was
carried out. Emerging from the center of the sun, a colibri
represents the ancient Tsáchilas, Quimi and Tsafiqui wisdom. The
multicoloured bird also alludes to the multicultural and
pluriethnic characters of the inhabitants of the province.
The coat of arms also retains the colours of the canton's flag.
The artist has used three endemic species of the region, the
colibri ("quimi"), the pambil palm tree
("shonpo") and the butterfly ("pumpu") [?],
triumphally raising in the air. The 17 feathers of the colibri
represent the 17 months required for the consultation that led to
the provincialization.
I found 13 Urban parishes: Santo Domingo de los Colorados,
Chiguilpe, Río Verde, Abraham Calazacón, Bombolí, Zaracay;
rural parishes: San José de Alluriquin, Puerto Limón, Luz de
América, San Jacinto del Búa, Valle Hermoso, El Esfuerzo, Santa
María del Toachi; and [?].Ivan Sache, 21 October 2008

The flag is in a 2:3 proportional ratio - a quartered saltire
design. A white saltire separates triangular quarters
of red (top and bottom) from green (left and right); inside the
white saltire (but a bit away from the edges) are black
fimbriations. The motif in the center is a big 16-pointed rayed
sunburst (with wavy rays in-between the straightened ones) in a
shiny color (seems to look like white with golden shadows); it
features a multicolored colibri
The shield used in its emblem looks similar to the United States'
Federal Route sign. This is divided horizontally with
a wavy line (of 7 up points), and vertically at the top (from the
top apex point on the shield to meet the up crest of the 4th -
central - point), thus yielding 2 quarters on the chief + an
undivided base. The top-left is red with a gold 16-point sun
motif (similar to the one on the flag, but in solid gold, and
bearing a butterfly [?] thereon), while the top-right is green
with a colibri (quimi); the base at the bottom is blue with a
broad white horizontal band across it, with 2 narrower black
stripes inside (but away fron its edges a bit). The crest on top
of the shield is a simple palm tree - green foliage with a brown
trunk.
Here are images of them
from "La
Hora".Robert Wheelock, 24 October 2008

There is a Tsáchilas
website, including a lot of interesting information,
especially: "The name Tsáchila is made of two roots, which
are, 'tsá', 'genuine', and, 'chila', 'a group of people'.
Therefore, Tsáchila means 'a genuine group of people'".
They are also known as 'Colorados'.Ivan Sache, 24 October 2008

Translated from <www.gptsachila.gov.ec>:
"Flag: The sun symbolizes the cultural heritage of our
ancestors and the legacy of 40 years of struggle. Its rays
represent the water resources, the base of our agronomical
prosperity.
The polychromous colibri represents multiculture, pluriethnicity.
Its ascending flight symbolizes the achievement of our glorious
destiny; its spread wings evoke love and generosity of our land.
The 17 feathers allude to the 17 months required for the
processus of provincialization.
The saltire is made of stripes representing our demographic and
economic development, in the shape of four roads, with the colour
of the "manpe tsanpá".
Red represents fire, the blood of our ancestors and achiote
[lipstick tree, Bixa orellana L.] dye. Green represents
the exuberant vegetation of our region, the renovation of the
natural environment, hope and immortality.
Yellow is the colour of gold, used to mean wealth, eternity and
sublimation. Black represents gravity, austere rigor, and comes
from huito [Genipa americana L.], a shrub originally
used to stain the stripes of the "manpe tsanpá".
White is the sum of the colours, representing light, purity,
incorruptibility and perfection."
"Coat of Arms: The sun symbolizes the cultural heritage of
our ancestors and the legacy of 40 years of struggle.
Its rays represent the water resources, the base of our
agronomical prosperity.
The polychromous colibri represents multiculture, pluriethnicity.
Its ascending flight symbolizes the achievement of our glorious
destiny; its spread wings evoke love and generosity of our land.
The 17 feathers allude to the 17 months required for the
processus of provincialization.
The pambil represents the progress of our people, their strength
and the union between spiritual and material domains. The
butterfly represents environmental health [?]
The "manpe tsanpá" is the Tsáchila women's dress,
with stripes proportionally increasing, representing our constant
demographic and economic development.
The waves evoke our water resources. Red represents fire, the
blood of our ancestors and graisse de rocouyer. Green represents
the exuberant vegetation of our region, the renovation of the
natural environment, hope and immortality.Jens Pattke and Ivan Sache, 22 November 2008